


Fruhling In Paris

by Lady_MidnightII



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Creepy, I Blame Nabokov, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Going to Hell, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Incest, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Canonical Character(s), No actual sex, Psychological Trauma, This Is Not Scary, Yes or No Incest?, Yes or No Underage?, kind of?, non-explicit reference to violence and death, probably?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1335262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_MidnightII/pseuds/Lady_MidnightII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This all started when I read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, listened to Rammstein's 'Fruhling In Paris,' and then got obsessed with that ship that hides in the corner sometimes from all the other ships, Germancest.  Also, Lana Del Rey got into my head.  So, if incest squicks you, or kind of implied underage, and overall weird themes, go away; go away and pretend you never read this summary and cuddle up to your GerIta (which I like, but, y'know, you don't see me writing about it in dark closets when no one is watching.)</p>
<p>Real summary:  A what-if fantasy, if Gilbert had succeeded where Humbert had failed, and Ludwig avoided the life of one Lolita only to be plagued by another haunting legacy; a legacy of a different kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fruhling In Paris

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, if you are squicked/bothered/DO NOT WANT with what is in the summary, leave now. If not, I hope you enjoy my sad, creepy, at times fluffy little tale. I don't own Lolita, Hetalia, any of the characters within; just the story.  
> At times, I suppose the point of view is confusing; the italicized bits are dream, which is basically most of the story; Ludwig has long dreams. Anyway, have fun reading, you wonderful readers!

* * *

 

Fruhling in Paris

 

Splash, splash, splosh, shaaa, drip. Staccato beats tapping the shingled roof; landing in the cold gutter; rushing down the length of metal; dripping with a sense of finality onto the stone of the veranda; this is what reaches Ludwig’s ears, muffling gentle breathing, the shift of cotton sheets.

It makes these softer sounds harsher. He likes to think he’s sharp and hard as his features say, no, shout. He likes to think it helps. He doesn't dare glance behind him, the room robed in shadow, the rain still pouring down in sorrowful splotches. With it unevenly spaced on the dirt of the land, it’s not so different from seeing tears on a face. He feels as if there’s someone behind him: the ghost of an arm, the suggestion of a sharp hip bone; the grazing of white hair.

There is not. Sensation is just that. A ghost; nothing more. He has always felt as if something was missing inside him. In his lungs, his body, there is life all around; however indifferent, it is alive; the pulsing, wet heat inside him is a testament to that fact. But inside his chest there is some foreboding fissure, some ravenous ravine that, if he dared or cared to cave, would undeniably bring about his end, personally tailored. That warmth turned heat turned fire turned flare kindled, he expected, sometime during the summer of his childhood prepubescence. He was thirteen years old.

He has never been a superstitious man. He has never had an issue with his black cat Hansel. He has never cringed when going under a ladder. He has never feared going about his normal business on the occasional Friday the thirteenth. He has never believed in weidergangers or vampiri. But tonight, he curls his rosary beads around his hand, says a few more Ave Marias than usual; he lies with the silver cross pressed to his lips, just in case. He closes his eyes, and mouths a name around the Savior before sleep overtakes him.

_The summer is hot, the sleepy seaside town slowed to stillness in the heat. The night is velvet soft, strawberry sweet, heavy and warm like a lover’s arm at dawn. His skin is slick with sweat, helpless with the humidity, blonde hair flat against his skull. Rivulets trail down to the deep hollow of his throat, framed by slender collarbones, soaking into the thin cotton sheets. Pale moonlight caresses pale skin, a gentle pink from the sun, not like the glowing gold of his friend, the other faunlet with shining auburn hair. Gilbert shakes his head, thinking of the Vargas boy._

_Feliciano has wide eyes, a warm cinnamon color. He has a rounded stomach, girlish lips. His limbs possess a charming, sunny grace, warm and open like his native country of rocky cliffs and Mediterranean beaches. Gilbert likes the boy; he’s sweet and kind, a wonderful child, as is his spicy younger brother._

_But they don’t hold a candle to him. This, this boy- no, this beautiful, lethal little devil… this is who he wants. He’s the owner of silky blonde hair, even when unwashed for days; pale, flawless skin, like fresh milk; tiny, long fingered hands, knobby knees, slender ankles that end in coy feet; big, baby blue bambi eyes; a mouth of lightest pink; a long, thin neck; a flat, smooth chest, tapering to a lithe waist, bony hips; petite buttocks, soft and smooth and perfectly round. He wants him._

_And he wants him soon. He is cursed, Gilbert knows. That slight movement as he tosses his hair; the shy bat of white lashes; the devil’s fey charm flowing in the boy’s rosy cheeks; it is going to kill him, but he can’t embrace it. If he embraces his death wish, he’ll never see his beloved boy again. Either way, he can’t afford to take the chance to his hellish grave. This realization, this epiphany that branded his chest, broke his knees; it lead him to the end of everything._

_He still finds reasons to smile, anyway. Now, he lies in his bed, spellbound and rapt with dark, turbulent wonder as the boy sleeps across the thin strip of floor separating them, curled into his pillow, as if to ward off monsters._

 

Ludwig wakes, curled into his pillow. He stares at the ceiling for a long moment, the backs of his eyelids bright with marina sun and the blue, blue water of the Mediterranean Sea. But he is not in Italy. He is in his own bed, in his own small house. And it is raining. It always seems to be raining.

It darkens the land like a knife darkens the skin with oozing blood. He sits up, shivering in his pristine, white cotton sheets. He refuses to use any other kind. It is another lingering touch, he supposes, of that fateful year on the Italian coast, staying at the riviera estate that belonged to his father’s half brother.

His hand is still wrapped tightly with the rosary, leaving round imprints. Another mark. Another reminder. It was his mother’s. She was radiant and sun kissed, with light brown hair. He remembers her smile, pretty and frail as a baby dove. She died in the summer of his tenth year, of pneumonia, he was told.

This, and memories, are all that are left of her. Haunting trace of flesh and bone, it is transparent, dragged asunder by the weight of memory, marked only by the shadowy dust trail it leaves behind. Ludwig closes his eyes and sleeps once more. It is well into the midnight hour.

 

_A pale blue sky, like robin’s eggs, is dusted with tall clouds, the billowing sails of dead sailors, sailing on the sky instead of the sea, holding no dark menace._

_Only the pirates steer the grey and black clouds with their canons of lightning, the boom of thunder. The sun shadows sandy beaches, shedding its shells of light upon the ground like cicadas upon the deep blue water, porpoises playing beneath its mysterious depths._

_Towards the shallows, the crashing waves have already broken in their fury for the shore, and crest gently, occasionally rippling and swaying the surface of the water. The young boy stands where the waves stop, the water clear. He can see his hand reach down to pick up a shell, his demure blue eyes lighting up with childish excitement as he admires its bright red color that fades to pink at the tips. It has a nice fan shape too, he notices, like the women’s that constantly flutter at their faces._

_He decides immediately to put it into his little collection bag. He waves companionably at Feliciano, who is also looking for shells with his little brother Romano._

_Feliciano smiles, waves back and calls, “Ve~, buongiorno Luddy!” Romano just scowls and mutters something. He’s not as nice as his brother, with his dark auburn hair and narrowed green eyes; like a snake, Ludwig thinks. He shrugs, and goes back to looking, wading in the shallows among the small sand crabs and fish going about their own lives. His father always says he makes good company with the various animals that live where they travel._

_Ludwig looks behind his shoulder curiously, hearing the parting of water. He smiles, quickly splashing over to meet the tall man he sees. He has pale skin despite being in the sun since they arrived at the Riviera, with pointed, youthful features and sharp reddish eyes. His smile is wide and bright as the sun, shining confidence and pride everywhere it touches; especially when he sees Ludwig. His hair is a silvery white-blonde; when Ludwig asked about it, he nine and his uncle twenty-two, he merely stated it had been that way his whole life._

_Ludwig laughs softly, running the last few steps to hug the man around his thin waist, as he is still a many heads taller than himself; the water reaches his hips, where on the man it reaches only to his thighs. Strong, thin hands, calloused by work and by war, ruffle his hair gently._

_“Guten tag, Uncle Gilbert,” he says, lips curved with shy excitement. “Guten tag. How is my little Luddy?” Gilbert replies, drawing Ludwig close, the light glinting on his silvery hair like a halo. Ludwig giggles, cheeks brightening to a flush when he sees this._

_“Gut, Uncle Gilbert. How are you?” “Fine, mein schatz.” Gilbert peers down at Ludwig in a way that makes him bury his face into his uncle’s stomach, burning with his red gaze._

_“You look skinny, Lud, do you want to go in and have some lunch with me? I’m starving for a sandwich…”_

_Ludwig nearly falls into the water with joy, grasping at his uncle’s waist tighter. Sandwiches. Alone time. With his Uncle Gilbert. He couldn't be happier. He nods his head rapidly, then waves goodbye to the Vargas brothers; together, they walk up to the chalet through the cold blue water, hands clasped together; Ludwig’s bag of shells tinkles at his side, the shells clinking in high pitched notes, a rising, feverish warning moved by the boy’s childish gait._

_They whisper and scream, sliding against each other in the dark of the oilcloth, grinding. It sounds only of a random song of clinks and tinks and dinks to Ludwig; he tries good-naturedly to hum along with it. One shell, a red fan, escapes, lost to the ocean as the two pass._

_Gilbert grins down at Ludwig with affection in his red eyes, baring all his pointed white teeth; a neat row glinting in the sun, a rack of tiny spears._

 

_The chalet is a grand thing, white washed on the outside and painted white on the inside; all the walls, high ceilings, and intricate moldings lining the floor and ceiling. The tiles are black and white marble, like a great chessboard. The furniture and decor are a different color in each room; shades of green for the sitting room, gold for the kitchen, tints of orange for the bathrooms, a gentle plum for the guest rooms; the study upstairs is themed in a cool, minty green._

_The bathrooms have pink and magenta accents. Ludwig has only ever seen these rooms, with what little exploring he has done the last time, when he was twelve._

_He likes how each room seems to evoke a mood, a feeling; liveliness, happiness, relaxation, comfort, calm, encouragement. How a room can be encouraging, Ludwig doesn't know, but he feels it all the same when he is in the upstairs guest bathroom, brushing his teeth or combing his hair. Ludwig sits in the kitchen now, toes barely reaching the rung of his stool, not quite reaching light pine floors. Contrary to what people think, his Uncle Gilbert’s home is not dark._

_“Why are people so afraid of Uncle Gilbert’s house, Father?” Ludwig had asked once, blinking up into his father’s face as he dusted his piano._

_“It’s pretty, with all the different colors.”_

_“Your uncle is just a very… Eccentric man, Ludwig,” his father said, straightening the glasses that slipped down his nose every so often with one gloved hand._

_“People assume a lot about your uncle that is not true.” Ludwig had tilted his head, confused. “Father? What does… essentic mean?”_

_“Eccentric, Ludwig. It just means someone is a little odd; for instance, many of the locals here believe your uncle is an Aufhocker just because he doesn't look the same as everyone else. He’s albino is all, nothing supernatural about it.”_

_Ludwig gaped, calling to mind several terrifying images of Aufhockers he had seen before in a book. He’d had nightmares for days._

_“My Uncle Gilbert would never hurt anyone!” protested Ludwig fiercely, stomping one little foot. “He never makes terrible faces, and he would never bite people either!”_

_“I know, Ludwig, it matters not what people say about your uncle.” His father replied, smiling. Without showing it, he thought back to the battleground, the awful smell of gun smoke in the air, the clotted blood mixed with the dying souls in the mud, and his half brother in the midst of it all, dark uniform streaked in foreign flaming scarlet, bright white hair shocking the darkness on the ground of death, his eyes alight with the coals of war as he stabbed his enemy._

_He had bent down, ignorant of the tiny cones of death flying through the air, grinning fiercely; his teeth stole a gleaming trophy, neck craned as if to kiss instead of tear and bite: an eye, impaled by the tiny pair of his lower and upper his canines; efficient, neat, that duo of tiny spears._

 

_Ludwig waits patiently as his Uncle towels off in the foyer, open to the sitting room and the kitchen. His white hair is mussed and standing everywhere, messier than usual. Ludwig smiles to himself, admiring the pale, corded muscles of his uncle’s arms and legs, the flat, scarred torso with childish awe._

_‘I want to grow up to be tall and strong,’ he thinks with a warm glow growing in his chest. ‘As strong as Uncle Gilbert.’ His large blue eyes linger, and his uncle’s eyes slide quickly to meet them, feeling the weight of his nephew’s gaze, and Ludwig’s eyes dart away like startled deer, heat spreading over his cheeks, red as blood._

_Gilbert just grins, a snake strangled in a lily. He walks over, ruffling his nephew’s hair as he passes; the boy bashfully leans up to his hand, in that small, fleeting moment. His hands know what to do; Lud’s favorite sandwich is then created; freshly baked bread, lettuce, tomato, leftover wurst and cold beef. Gilbert fixes himself a roast sandwich on rye, with spicy mustard. He likes things hot. He sits on the stool next to Ludwig, hunched slightly to lower his height._

_He’s noticed over time that it makes Ludwig more comfortable; that, and it helps to keep him from making a mess all over the counter. He sneaks a side glance at the boy, trying with little success to pick up his sandwich as Gilbert does, in once piece. He knows, even in his darkest heart, that he will never hurt Ludwig. All he’s ever wanted to do is touch him: show him his love, how he feels it: like a song, sweet and soft, always in his head, marked with long, sweeping strokes of deep desire and short, passionate notes of lust._

_He can’t say when, or why, but this beautiful boy has managed to lasso his heart, in many ways, from the day he met him. He remembers his first word, too, and it slayed him utterly. It was summer, and his brother’s wife (he had loved her, too, in The Before Time) was holding him in her arms as Gilbert cooed to him. And the first word that had fell from the child’s lips was “Gil!” And Gilbert was lost._

 

_Ludwig is chewing noisily, and he looks so happy, Gilbert doesn't have the heart to correct him. Roderich will have his head for it, he’s all about the boy’s schooling and etiquette, but Gilbert will just say screw it. He only gets to see Ludwig twice out of the year, excluding extra visits and accidental meetings: once during the Christmas and Advent holiday, and another in the summer. He’ll take any opportunity to be with him, even if it is just school lessons, playing in the ocean, or any other domestic activity. He won’t lose his beloved boy to his darker self._

_“Uncle Gil?” Gilbert is startled, and it shows in the nervous jump in his shoulders. He puts down his crusts silently, and turns his head. His nephew’s face is open and pure, covered in tomato and meat juice, and his eyes are beseeching. He holds out his crumb-covered hands, and asks, with a note of contrition,_

_“Can you help me get cleaned up, Uncle Gil? I’m sorry for being so messy.” Wincing, the young boy adds, “Father would smack me with his baton.”_

_Gilbert just stares at him for a moment, and shakes his head, taking one small hand in his own. He leads him to the sink after cleaning up their plates, takes the bar of soap, and washes Ludwig’s hands, gentle and slow, trying not to linger too long. After, he wipes them with a clean dishcloth and bends down to his level on one knee, using the moisture to wipe at the boy’s face._

_“Uncle Gilbert,” Ludwig whines quietly, “I can do it. I’m not a baby anymore.”_

_“You’ll always be my baby boy, Ludwig,” he says, his voice husky, his heart screaming for him to kiss the boy. He can see the blood rush up into his pale cheeks, see the bloom of young love in his big blue eyes, and it takes everything he has to keep from fouling his spring of purity. His nose takes in the still childish scent of him, sweet, mixed with the bread and the salt of the sea._

_It burns._

_Ludwig tilts his head, and he leans forward to grip his uncle’s neck. He nuzzles his cheek against his to wipe away the tears, and he asks, “Uncle Gilbert, why are you crying?”_

_When he doesn't receive an answer, he hugs him tighter, small hands stroking his uncle’s snowy neck. Gilbert sniffles, and then picks him up, his arms holding his bottom, hands interlaced around his legs. Ludwig keeps his hold on Gilbert’s neck, curling against his skin._

_“Uncle Gil? Where are we going?”_

_“Upstairs, Luddy. I want to show you something.” The pair ascend the stairs, lead by longing, an inescapable destiny that Gilbert is determined to thwart. He nudges a door at the end of the hall; it opens without a sound, revealing a room painted white, with dark maroon colors staining the bed, dripping down in the curtains, splattered on the carpet. Ludwig blinks, and is overcome with a sense of loneliness and something else… He cannot name it. His cheeks heat, and he squirms in his uncle’s warm arms. “What is this room, Uncle Gilbert?”_

_“This is my room, Ludwig. Sorry I freaked out; I’m just tired is all. Would you like to take a nap with me?”_

_Ludwig doesn't answer, not immediately; soon, though, he looks at his uncle with the unfailing, untouched love of a child, and whispers, “Yes.”_

 

Ludwig opens his eyes. The room is dark, robed in shadow. He doesn't dare glance behind him; in the mirror, he thinks he sees his uncle’s pale skin, the mop of white hair; his half-lidded red eyes, glowing with a hollow and painful hunger. He assures himself that it’s not there, was never there; his uncle died long ago, suicide from the depression of the war; it is a ghost of sensation, nothing more.

He hears a rustle, and he flicks on the bedside lamp. The curtains are flowing freely, letting in the rain. He doesn't remember opening the window, but things of this nature happen to him often; cups displaced, windows open, soil and water in the house, Hansel getting locked outside. He gets up to shut the sill when he stops, cold. Under his hands, the rain is washing away sand and crushed shells. His home is miles from the sea, from the Riviera. Just beside the heel of his hand, a red, red shell, like the fans of women, sits, fading to pink, white at its tips.

**Author's Note:**

> It's an open end, my readers; did they simply sleep together, curled up like two kittens? Did they do more than just cuddles? Honestly, I don't know; I could write two ways, but, that depends. And what's with all the supernatural stuff and me killing Prussia? Does he live in a possessed house? All I can say is that I can't help what comes to me for them. It's just my style, like how I love domestic!Avengers and Cracky!Watchmen. I love Creepy!Germancest. (My love of Stephen King stories isn't helping.) Just to say, a lot of my stuff is completely AU, but I still hope I didn't mess with their core personalities; what was there, anyway. *Sad face* Definitely apologizing for Austria.   
> I don't know Austria very well.
> 
> Aufhocker- It's a shape-shifting demon thing in Germanic folklore; you can totes look it up. It jumps on people and bites out their throats. EW.


End file.
